Citroën – The Complete Story

Graham Wilson, the G Section Registrar of the Citroën Car Club UK wrote to mention a new book “Citroën The Complete Story”. In this new view on the Citroën story, automotive/aviation writer and design specialist Lance Cole investigates not just the details of the cars of Citroen, but the aeronautical and cultural origins that lay behind Citroën’s form and function. The book digs deep into the ethos of Automobiles Citroën to create a narrative on one of the greatest car manufacturers in history. Using interviews, translations, archive documents and specially-commissioned photographs, the Citroën journey is cast in a fresh perspective. It explains in detail the influences upon Citroën design: Voisin, Lefebrve, Bertoni, Boulanger, Mages, Opron and recent Citroën designers such as Coco, Blakeslee and Soubirou. As well as all the men of the great period of 1920’s – 1970’s expansion, citing less well-known names of Citroën’s French engineering, design, and influence such as Cayla, Gerin, Giret, Harmand, Dargeent and others, to give a full picture of Citroën heritage.

The book provides in-depth analysis of all major Citroën models with an engineering and design focus, profiles key individuals and cars up to the present day (it even mentions the new Cactus) and Citroen’s ‘DS’-branded resurgence and features many newly commissioned photographs, rare archive drawings and interviews with Citroën owners.

It’s published in the UK by the Crowood Press Ltd: ISBN 978 1 84797 659 8 and is for sale on Amazon’s website. It is list priced at $59.95 US.
The data Lance has produced on GS aerodynamics is very interesting, as is the text on its safety – something that is rarely mentioned in the classic car world.

Speaking of the GS, Graham reports that the most recent data available and compiled from more than one source (after a lot of work done by him) indicates how many GS/As are still legally be on the road in the UK. It’s not that many:

– GS = about 48 that can be legally driven on the road. This figure has been fairly stable since 2001
– GSA = about 36 that can be legally driven on the road. This figure has dropped from 139 in 2001